Daylight Savings Time & Your Health - Increase of Heart Attacks

Beyond sleep deprivation, a New England Journal of Medicine study in 2008 in Sweden found heart attack risks increase in the days right after the daylight saving time change. Imre Janszk, lead author, said, “The most likely explanation to our findings are disturbed sleep and disruption of biological rhythms.”

Ha, I'd like to talk to these people about coming up with some alternatives for adjusting your body clock. I work graveyard shift and sometimes day shifts. The few ideas they offer for helping to offset health risks could be improved by ideas of anyone who works odd schedules. Besides it only addresses part of the population who can use the sun as the guide for their schedule, it skips the groups of people who work odd hours.

• Starting several days before the change, stick to this schedule: On the first day, get in bed 15 minutes earlier than your normal bedtime; on the second day, 30 minutes earlier than normal; and on the third day, try to get into bed 45 minutes earlier than your normal bedtime.

• Stop drinking caffeine at 1:30 p.m. to help with the earlier bedtime.